{"id":10285,"date":"2026-07-07T10:59:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T10:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.joapen.com\/jepc\/?p=10285"},"modified":"2026-07-07T10:59:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T10:59:14","slug":"welcoming-the-rest-of-the-choir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.joapen.com\/jepc\/2026\/07\/welcoming-the-rest-of-the-choir\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcoming the rest of the Choir"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"443\" height=\"591\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.joapen.com\/jepc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10286 lazyload\" data-srcset=\"http:\/\/www.joapen.com\/jepc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image.png 443w, http:\/\/www.joapen.com\/jepc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-225x300.png 225w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 443px) 100vw, 443px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 443px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 443\/591;\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hallelujah! The last of our PBCC Bulgaria-Romania contingent has finally landed in Sofia! The first of our group touched down in the early evening direct from Frankfurt, some of us flew to Munich and then on to Sofia, and the rest of us took the evening flight to Sofia. (Editor\u2019s note &#8211; proving Philadelphia\u2019s global reach, I encountered an Eagles fan while buying allergy meds in the Munich pharmacy! We had a moment. Go Birds.) The Sofia groups had dinner at a local restaurant, the Munich groups had Munich airport food, and the final Frankfurt folks continued their long residence in that bustling airport for meal #2 of the day. (The airport had a free video game room which some of our kids happily checked out.)&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are all checked into our hotel and were delighted to see our choir mate Javier Pena Cohen, who\u2019ll be with us for the rest of the tour, meeting our buses with a \u201cWelcome to Bulgaria\u201d sign he drew himself. Aside from Javi\u2019s greeting, the things we are most delighted about are: showers and real beds. In case you\u2019re counting, and we were, it took 30 hours for most of us to make our way from Philly to Sofia &#8211; darn near two days of buses, (airport) trains and planes. We are definitely exhausted, but don\u2019t worry &#8211; these kids were still breaking into spontaneous song even as we pulled into our hotel. And one of the flight attendants on the Munich to Sofia flight was absolutely astounded that the choir that sang at a World Cup game on Saturday was on her plane very late on Monday. &#8220;It gives me chills,&#8221; she said. &#8220;You must be famous!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Photos weren\u2019t as plentiful today because we were spread out, but all of our guys are present and accounted for! Tomorrow, we head to the mountains, then have a musical exchange with a local choir that the kids are very much anticipating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Exhaustedly yours,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hallelujah! The last of our PBCC Bulgaria-Romania contingent has finally landed in Sofia! The first of our group touched down in the early evening direct from Frankfurt, some of us flew to Munich and then on to Sofia, and the rest of us took the evening flight to Sofia. (Editor\u2019s note &#8211; proving Philadelphia\u2019s global [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-10285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-javier","tag-travels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joapen.com\/jepc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joapen.com\/jepc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joapen.com\/jepc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joapen.com\/jepc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joapen.com\/jepc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.joapen.com\/jepc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10287,"href":"http:\/\/www.joapen.com\/jepc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10285\/revisions\/10287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joapen.com\/jepc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joapen.com\/jepc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joapen.com\/jepc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}